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Salary

Average Salary: $39,550

Expected Lifetime Earnings: $1,651,000

Yeah, right. If you’re as lucky as Michelle here, you'll get a regular paycheck and you may not break into cold sweats every time the first of the month rolls around. (That's "rent" day. You'll learn about that first-hand pretty darn soon.) However, she is by no means famous or fabulously successful, and she's still one of the fortunate ones. There’s such a wide range of earnings for musicians that we won't even fathom an estimate of average income, but it isn't great. (A big rock star today makes less than a reasonably successful hair and nail salon chain owner. Internet and piracy and iTunes killed the radio star.) If you get into this for the money, you're doing it for the wrong reason. Instead, get into it for the easy work schedule.

Plus, if you're going the rock star route, you should understand that the majority of the money is in the touring, so you'd better be prepared to travel. Album sales are nice, but with all those pirates and bootleggers out there nowadays, people aren't paying for recorded music as much as they used to. It's the live performances in packed stadiums that really rake in the deniro.